Where to Walk Near the Lake Through the Rest of Winter
Okay, so this is the practical one. Less "here's a bird," more "here's where to put your feet for the next couple months," which I think is honestly just as important. You can know every hawk in this course and still not go because you're not sure where to park.
So let's fix that.
Start with the flat trails
I've said this before but I'll say it plainly here: winter is the best time for beginners, and I don't think people believe me when I say it. The trees are bare, so nothing's hiding. The waterfowl are packed onto whatever open water's left, so you're not hunting for one bird in a whole lake, you're looking at a raft of five hundred. You can actually see what you're looking at, which is not nothing.
The trails out by the lake are flat, which matters more than people think until their knees start telling them otherwise. That's the whole reason Alan and I started walking out there in the first place, doctor's orders, nothing to do with birds at all originally. Flat trail means you're not watching your feet, you're watching the sky and the water, which is really the whole point.
Pick a stretch you can do in under an hour to start. You're not trying to cover ground. You're trying to stand still a lot, which takes longer than you'd think.
What to actually look at, section by section
Here's how I break it up in my head, and you can steal this:
- Open water — your ducks, your grebes, your coots bobbing around in a mass. This is where you'll get the most birds per square foot, especially on a still morning.
- The field edges — this is hawk country. Red-tails on the poles, harriers working low over the grass. Slow down here even if it looks empty. It usually isn't.
- The tree line, wherever there is one — this is where you might get lucky with something perched and still, an owl if you're out at the right time, which we already covered.
I like to walk the water first while I've still got patience for standing still, then move toward the field edges toward the end when I'm ready to keep moving and just scan as I go.
The harrier trick, applied
I mentioned a while back that I finally learned to tell a northern harrier from a rough-legged hawk by the way it flies, not the way it looks. The harrier tips side to side low over the grass like it's had one too many. Once you see that motion you cannot unsee it, I promise you.
Here's the thing about walking the same stretch of trail all winter: you start to see that trick pay off in real time. I'll be walking along not even trying that hard and something will catch my eye a couple hundred feet out over a field, and before I've even focused on it I'll think "that's tipping, that's a harrier," and then I look and sure enough. That took me a long time to get and it happened from walking the same field edges over and over, not from any book. That's the argument for going back to the same spot all winter instead of always chasing somewhere new. You start to read the place.
A few practical things
Dress warmer than you think you need to. I know I say this every lesson practically, but it's the flat land by the lake and the wind comes off the water with nothing to stop it, no canyon walls, nothing. Cold hands will end your morning faster than anything else, faster than boredom, faster than a bad bird day. I dress like I'm going up the canyon even though I'm barely off the freeway, and I've stopped feeling silly about it.
Check the trail conditions before you go, especially after a storm. Ice on a flat trail is still ice, and a fall out there with nobody around is a bad way to end a nice morning. If it's iced over, give it a day.
And park where other people park. I'm not going to tell you exactly which lot, that depends on which stretch you're doing, but a lot with a few other cars in it in the early morning is usually a lot other birders or walkers use regularly, and that's a decent sign it's a fine spot to be alone in before sunrise.
One more thing about the "where"
You don't need a plan for every single week. I don't have one. Some Saturdays Alan and I do the same stretch we've done fifty times, and some mornings I feel like driving the extra ten minutes to the other side. Both are fine. The birds don't know which parking lot you used.
Before next time
Pick one stretch near the lake you haven't walked yet this winter, even if it's just the other side of the same trail you always do, and go stand there for twenty minutes with no goal except noticing what's moving.